An additional paradox of the elections that will be held in two weeks in Cyprus. The government (at least officially) is involved in this electoral process only technocratically: Conducting the two electoral contests (European elections and local government elections) and smooth implementation of the local government reform the next day.
So in contrast to the other 26 member states of the European Union in the case of Cyprus, the existing particularity, which arose due to the result of the 2023 Presidential Elections, also affects the climate in which this election campaign is being held. It is essentially for an election where – no matter how hard the political parties try – it does not have a specific compass.
Leaving out of the way the classic confrontation between the government and the opposition, the only thing left to remind us that we have elections in two weeks are the posters of dozens of candidates on the streets and the cards and leaflets distributed by those directly interested. If it weren't for these, surely no one would know that on June 9 elections will be held, which will not be insignificant as far as the local communities are concerned. Real-Barcelona or Liverpool-United, between government and opposition or between DISY and AKEL, we end up in local derbies, like AEL-Apollo.
The fact that DISY and AKEL found themselves, in February 2023, in the opposition affects the current state of affairs in the political landscape of Cyprus. The minimal conflicts are taken from other pre-election periods in the pre-23 era. They go back to the periods when both were in the role of government/opposition to oppose their own actions since the current state of affairs does not allow them to do something similar.
The municipal elections that came to be linked (in a way that increasingly seems to have been wrong) to the European elections have not only failed to mobilize the interest of society more, but on the contrary cause a discomfort. Because it is possible that on the one hand the personal interest of each candidate forces him to mobilize, reminding the non-participants that elections are coming, but it is not certain that this has a positive effect on the wider society. And several questions arise as to whether the combination of two different electoral contests will have a more positive effect on more people going to the polls.
Agenda without…Cypriot
And whereas in the past the topic and the agenda, regardless of what the starting point was, ended up in the last weeks before the elections on the classic topic… the Cyprus issue. This time the Cyprus issue remains off the agenda and this is also – to a certain extent – a consequence of the new data that emerged in 2023.
In the Cyprus issue, someone will be able to say that it is outside the political agenda because there are no developments. There have also been periods in the past when there were no developments but there was intense debate and confrontation at the political level. But in this case this does not stand, because the little mobility recorded in the Cyprus issue – appointment and visits of the UN Secretary General's envoy – coincides with the pre-election period. Something that in the past would certainly have been a recipe for intense confrontations.
Since the management of the Cyprus issue is not in the hands of one of the two major parties, the conflict and debate between them is affected accordingly. Artificially, the parties that participated in the election of Nikos Christodoulidis (and which in the past were also the most sensitive to what was going on in the Cyprus issue) this time try to keep it as far as possible from the discussions. And this is not unrelated to the fact that they and the President have differences even on the form of the Cyprus solution. And it would not be an exaggeration to say that the absence of debates/controversies in the Cyprus issue is indirectly favored by the Presidency.
They played with immigration but…
Tones have been raised recently due to a confrontation between DIKO and ELAM which had immigration as its subject, but the essence of the conflict has to do with the third place in the result of the European elections. It is not yet clear whether, by instigating this confrontation at the given moment, DIKO succeeded in what it intended, but what is certainly recorded is the attempt to cash in on what the Christodoulidis government achieved, but at the same time removing any credit from Konstantinos Ioannou. The pre-election agenda on immigration could have a better performance for DIKO if, in the meantime, President Christodoulidis were to proceed with the establishment of the Deputy Ministry of Immigration, placing someone from the party in the position of Deputy Minister.
Taking into account that the government's policies have paid off and the competent agencies have shown that they can succeed even with today's conditions, a question mark arises as to the necessity of setting up the said deputy ministry.
The Cypriot diversity
These elections, with regard to the aspect of electing members of the European Parliament, have an additional diversity compared to the corresponding contests in the other 26 EU member states. There, the European elections also act as a form of validation/rejection of government policies. If you look at Greece, you will notice that Kyriakos Mitsotakis promotes the achievements of the New Democracy government, while reinforcing his political discourse with European issues, such as his interventions in economic and defense issues at the EU level.
This purely European agenda recorded in the electoral contests in the other 26 EU member states is conspicuously absent from the Cypriot contest. While the government wants to stay true to its own agenda, the opposition parties choose a more traditional agenda of issues and messages to voters. The DISY, which could make moves similar to those of the New Democracy and make proposals, avoids it as it does not want to provide fodder for the rulers to take advantage of.
Pressure against the background of the future
At the very next European Council, all the EU leaders, in the wells between them, will have to discuss how well they did in the elections or what went wrong, the one who will be out of the question is the President of Cyprus, who did not have to what political role does he play in these elections.
However, while he himself institutionally and politically chose to be outside the battle of the European elections, he tried throughout the previous period to pressure the president of DISY in this direction as well. The fact of the crucial elections of June 9 was artificially ignored and – indirectly or directly – shadows were left (from various directions) that he was doing pre-elections for 2028. But until 2028, in addition to the European and local government elections in June, the parliamentary elections of 2026 will also take place, where it is logical that the leaders of the parties participate in the pre-elections.
2024: Ι δονκοκλμα με ;ζντα χωοπριακ >One the battle and another the profit
In addition to the seats to be won by the parties participating in the European elections, an additional gain of the governing parties is the selection of members for the new European Commission. Thus, at the European level, the ruling parties are also fighting over the portfolios in the new Commission. This is not the case in the case of Cyprus either, as the parties participating in the European elections, apart from the selection of MEPs, are not expected to have any role or say in which person will go to Brussels as Commissioner.
On the Hill, Nikos Christodoulidis will wait for the outcome of the elections to decide himself – and not one of the parties participating in the European elections – who he considers suitable for the position of Commissioner in the EU. So the battle will be fought by others, but the profit , which in this case is a portfolio in the Commission, will go to another person.
By again making a comparison with Greece (but it also applies to other European countries) we will see that there Kyriakos Mitsotakis is throwing weight on the European agenda as, on the one hand, through an alignment of the stars, he may find himself a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission, and on the other hand, the Greek Commissioner wants to receive one of the important portfolios of Brussels.
But this is not it may apply in the case of Cyprus, where DISY, like New Democracy in Greece, will fight in the European elections. But the one who will make the choice of Commissioner will not be the leader of the faction. Thus, the matter of the Cypriot Commissioner will be handled, in fact, by President Christodoulidis.
